“The Prodigal Paints: James Hayward Paintings 1972-2011”

“They had this red, yellow, blue triptych,” said artist James Hayward, who was in San Diego for the opening of his exhibition at the R.B. Stevenson Gallery.

“I’m looking at it and I finally realize the yellow painting was upside down. So I go up to the painting and take it off the wall, flip it over, and some woman screams out: ‘Look what that man is doing to the painting!’

“The rich Texan that owned the house came running in, security arrived, and he said, ‘What’s going on in here?’

“And I said, ‘Well, the yellow was upside down.’

“The Texan growls and says, ‘Who’d notice but you?’ ”

Hayward, who studied with Richard Allen Morris, graduated from San Diego State University in the early ’60s and has long lived in Los Angeles, has lots of excellent stories. In fact, he’s collected many of them in his highly entertaining book, “Indiscretion.” But he’s also produced lots of excellent art, all of it abstract, much of it monochromatic. Some commentators place him among the top West Coast painters, and you can see for yourself at in the R.B. Stevenson Gallery exhibit, part of the Getty-initiated “Pacific Standard Time.”

Hayward had a few thoughts of his own as he wandered through the exhibit:

“Automatic Painting 18x18 white #5” (1979)

“This is about as out there as I ever got. I love these paintings. That’s about 120 or 130 layers of white acrylic over a black ground, and it’s just put on with a brush day after day. When you get it way down the road, you think that you are going to finish it, but the next morning when you come out, there’s some little cosmic booger in it, and when you are going for perfection, that wrecks it. It was near miraculous whenever one of these things got done.”

“Icon” (1987)

“In ’87 or so, the European theorists were telling us spirituality — and art — is dead, no longer relevant. I thought, ‘What’s the most spiritual shape I can think of?’ And I thought, ‘the icon triptych.’ So this is just kind of contrary. When someone says something is taboo, what do you want do?”

“The Shadows of Ideas 8th Variation” (2000)

“When I was young, one day I’m in class and I’m glopping all this (stuff) on a painting, and the teacher says, ‘What are you doing?’ I go, ‘I’m putting on the texture.’ And he goes, ‘Idiot, texture is a part of the process, it’s not a separate thing.’ And I guess that resonated in my dumb brain.”

“Chromachord # 115” (2006)

“Back in the ’70s, doing the flat paintings (like ‘Automatic Painting’), I was so into it that I honestly thought I could show people how to see. I was such a true believer. Eventually, I realized you can’t show people how to see no matter how clear you make your argument; it’s impossible. People see when they are ready to see. You can try to help, but it’s kind of futile.”

“Chromachord # 130” (2010)

“I think it’s Schopenhauer who talks about, in the process of making something physical, it’s always compromised. I think painting has the ability not to compromise, maybe because there’s only one person involved. … With one person controlling it, if you are nuts enough, you can make it be what you want it to be. Eventually, though, you get a little looser with your idea, you let the idea open up and you become less enamored with control. … I think I’ve slowly transcended control. I’ve put it behind me.”